@pistachioinfernal / pistachioinfernal.tumblr.com
The books have been balanced. The debt has gone up. New programs are in place. So what does B.C. budget 2018 mean to you? These are 11 things that can be taken away from the first full B.C. NDP budget since 2001.
The BC Green Party is not prepared to vote against the NDP government on a rental subsidy and $10-a-day daycare plan, even though Green Leader Andrew Weaver has flatly declared that the NDP’s vision for both election platform planks won’t happen.
“We’re not in a political brinksmanship world here,” Green MLA Sonia Furstenau said in an interview on Wednesday, rejecting the possibility of an anti-NDP vote by the Greens, who have committed to voting with the NDP on confidence measures.
Pressed on whether she was answering Yes or No on bringing down the government on these issues, Ms. Furstenau said: “No. We’re in a working relationship where, ideally, we can work out disagreements in a collaborative and co-operative way.”
The position removes some of the teeth from Mr. Weaver’s biting criticism of the NDP policies on rent and daycare. On Tuesday, he declared the NDP will not pass the measures as proposed. He called the election commitments “irrelevant right now” because the NDP did not win the May election.
During the spring election campaign, the NDP ran on a platform that called for $10-a-day child care, with part-time care for $7 a day. No fees are to be charged for families with annual incomes below $40,000 a year under the plan advanced during the campaign.
In their election platform, the Greens included a commitment to free daycare for working parents with children under 3. It also included up to 25 hours of free early childhood education a week for three- and four-year-olds. Ms. Furstenau noted that free child care would be means tested and seen as a taxable benefit in households earning more than $80,000 per year.
the greens are the fucking worst
Niki Ashton, NDP leadership candidate has sent out a campaign email in support of Universal Pharmacare. She also supports dental and mental health being covered by Canada’s healthcare system.
Charlie Angus, NDP’s Indigenous affairs critic will be meeting with the Muskrat Falls hunger strikers today.
The young and popular deputy leader of Ontario’s NDP says he’s open to running for the leadership of the federal party.
“If there was a grassroots movement then I would seriously consider it,” Jagmeet Singh told the National Post. “I haven’t committed to anything, nor have I closed the door to anything.”
The 37-year-old was elected to the provincial legislature in 2011 for his Brampton, Ont. riding, Bramalea-Gore-Malton, after narrowly losing a bid for a federal seat that year to Conservative Bal Gosal.
A former criminal defence lawyer, Singh became the first turbaned Sikh MPP in the province.
In 2013, he made Toronto Life’s “50 Most Influential” and “Toronto’s Best Dressed” lists. He was also named one of Queen’s Park Briefing’s 75 most powerful people in the province. He’s fluent in French, along with Punjabi and Indian Urdu.
Many in Ottawa are abuzz at the prospect. Singh has the “royal jelly,” said Robin MacLachlan, a vice president at Summa Strategies and a longtime NDP organizer. Singh has become something of a political celebrity in Toronto, who is sometimes “almost mobbed” at events, MacLachlan said.
MPs kicked off a debate Tuesday on a proposal to encourage federal parties to run equal numbers of men and women.
If adopted, New Democrat MP Kennedy Stewart’s private member’s bill, C-237, would penalize political parties that don’t come close to gender parity on their candidate slates. The bill will get an hour of debate this week, with another hour to follow likely in the fall.
Women hold only 26 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons – the best-ever result, but still far from a number that reflects the percentage of Canadians who are female. According to the International Parliamentary Union, Canada ranks 61st in the world in terms of female MPs.
Stewart’s proposal would see the parties lose a percentage of their election refunds. Federal parties are eligible to get half of their campaign expenses refunded; his bill would see them lose a portion of that if they didn’t achieve 45-per-cent female slates.
Private member’s bills are less likely to become law because they don’t have the automatic support of a governing party the way government bills do. But Stewart says MPs from each party support his bill, including Liberal MP Pam Damoff, vice-Chair of the status of women committee, Conservative Senator Nancy Ruth and several of his New Democrat colleagues.
B.C. should adopt a new Manitoba law offering victims of domestic violence leave while fleeing their abuser, according to the NDP.
The Opposition critic for women’s issues, Maurine Karagianis, said she plans to introduce a private members bill in B.C. seeking similar bans on penalizing victims at work when they flee abuse at home.
Ontario’s legislature is already debating a similar bill.
Asked if it would follow suit, the B.C. government simply responded with an email listing existing programs for domestic abuse victims. It’s email also noted the B.C. Employment Standards Act grants employees five days unpaid leave if there is an issue with the care and health of an immediate family member.
The Manitoba law, the first in Canada, provides job security to people fleeing domestic violence. Victims fleeing domestic violence are entitled to five paid days off, five unpaid days off and an additional 17 weeks of unpaid leave while trying to find a new home. Ontario’s proposed legislation offers 10 paid days of leave and, like Manitoba, will guarantee the job will be waiting for them on their return.
“It’s excellent legislation,” said Karagianis. “It’s especially needed in B.C. In fact we’ve seen a dramatic increase in violence in B.C.” She noted in B.C. in 2014 there were 20 deaths attributed to domestic violence and another 18 women were seriously injured.
Karagianis said she hasn’t heard anything from the provincial Liberals about whether they plan to bring in similar legislation.
This is a big deal.
This is the kind of thing that young people have been asking for, forever. If enough young people come out and vote, Saskatchewan could make this happen. If this happens there it could spread across this country. We need to support parties that are acting in our best interests.
The Saskatchewan election is on April 4th, 2016. It is an election between the Centre-Right, conservative, Sask Party and the Centre-Left, progressive, NDP Saskatchewan party.
This is a big deal.
This is the kind of thing that young people have been asking for, forever. If enough young people come out and vote, Saskatchewan could make this happen. If this happens there it could spread across this country. We need to support parties that are acting in our best interests.
The Saskatchewan election is on April 4th, 2016. It is an election between the Centre-Right, conservative, Sask Party and the Centre-Left, progressive, NDP Saskatchewan party.
“In the ’80s, roughly 30,000 Canadians were infected with Hepatitis and HIV because of a tainted blood scandal,” federal NDP Health Critic Don Davies said Monday in a prepared statement.
“Clear lessons were learned from this tragedy: profits must not compete with safety when it comes to blood. So why are the Liberals permitting a for-profit, paid-donor blood plasma clinic to operate, putting Canadians at risk once again?”
Health Minister Dustin Duncan last month defended the opening in Saskatoon of Canadian Plasma Resources (CPR) Clinic. Ontario and Quebec have effectively banned such clinics but Duncan said he “fundamentally” disagrees with the position Ontario took. That province passed legislation banning the collection of plasma on a paid basis but did not introduce legislation to ban the importation of plasma products that come from a paid donor.
This feels just as relevant now as it was in 2011.
Tom Mulcair issued a rallying cry to progressive voters Friday as he unveiled a proposal aimed at taking tax benefits from the rich and transferring them to the poor. The NDP leader promised that a New Democrat government would scrap the employee stock options deduction, a benefit enjoyed primarily by corporate executives that’s worth more than $700 million each year. That money would be redirected to low-income families by enhancing the working income tax benefit and the national child benefit supplement. “This will be a dollar-for-dollar transfer in benefits from those who need it the least to those who need it the most,” Mulcair told some 800 participants at the annual progress summit organized by the Broadbent Institute, a social democratic think-tank. Mulcair cast the proposal as a “substantial measure” to reduce the gap between rich and poor Canadians and “a major step forward to take millions of Canadians, particularly children, out of poverty and into the middle class.” “The tremendous wealth that is being generated in this country today is landing into fewer and fewer hands,” he said, calling the income gap “fundamentally un-Canadian.”
Interesting look at the pressures on candidates who happen to be young mothers on the campaign trail. The piece talks mainly about Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, my current Member of Parliament and the one I’ve been volunteering for.
News stories like these almost always focus on women because, well, our society puts the pressure on them to balance work and parenthood, as opposed to fathers. That said, it was interesting to note that her husband acts as the primary caregiver so good on them for making it work for her career.
I wasn’t out volunteering today because I had to take my kid to to swimming lessons as I’m being primary caregiver today.
Anyway, all that to say, if you watch the piece, you can see a photo of me on her office wall. ;)
Good news Ontario, Bill 77 (link is old but explains the bill) which seeks to ban Conversion therapy to LGBT youth has passed third reading. It will become law soon.
Its now being fast tracked to Committee hearings.
